


Distance for A Touch

by Bleecker177a



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Angst, Beta Wanted, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-16 12:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12343104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bleecker177a/pseuds/Bleecker177a
Summary: The distance between life and death lies in a reason.The distance between life and death lies in a promise.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firelotus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firelotus/gifts).
  * A translation of [Distance for A Touch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11956653) by [荷尖角 (firelotus)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firelotus/pseuds/%E8%8D%B7%E5%B0%96%E8%A7%92). 



> I'm not a native speaker, but this piece is so beautifully written that I felt I had to try to translate it, so more people could enjoy it. So, here it is.
> 
>  **I'm looking for a beta-reader.** This is the first time I translate Chinese into English, so mistakes are inevitable. Suggestions, corrections, and Brit-picking will be much appreciated.

He took a shot at the fuel tank.

As the bullet pierced the tank, he felt something also bursting through his chest with a loud crack, as though signifying an ending of some kind. Sparks turned into flames; in the setting sun, the blood-red horizon trembled slowly into a dotted line, shaking away the moistures in his eyes.

The sun sank into the sea. So did his hope for a safe return.

To his back stood his home. And Collins.

Facing him were the German Soldiers closing in on him, their rifles held high. And the burning pyre of his Spitfire, soon to be consigned to history, like himself.

He didn't look back.

He had known his fate the moment he ran out of fuel. Before firing his flare gun, he did consider whether to put the last round into the fuel tank or his temple, but Collins’s face appeared during that split second of indecision. With a smile, he pushed away the gun Farrier was aiming at himself, and pointed it at the tank.

 

_“When the war is over, when we retire, when I no longer belong to the country, then I’ll be yours.”_

Collins’s whispered words drifted in from somewhere faraway, echoing in his mind.

A reason, he thought to himself.

The distance between life and death might just lie in a reason.

He had to live for that reason.

 

✈✈

 

To the Germans, Farrier was a blank page. Or rather, a classified document with every sentence redacted, blocked out in heavy black ink. All they could do was crumple the page, tear it to pieces, watch it turn into ashes in a flame, but they could never extract any useful information from it.

Before his capture, he had dumped every piece of useful equipment into the cockpit and burnt it along with his Spitfire. All the Germans could find on him afterwards were a small army knife, a sooty watch, and a crumpled, unsmoked fag in his pocket.

Also not at all helpful for gathering intelligence.

He wore the same expression the entire time, indistinguishable between apathy and numbness. Not that there was a difference between the two in the eyes of the Germans.

 

The Dunkirk evacuation had ended, leaving him and the other Allied soldiers stranded on the abandoned beach, like the layers of sea foam after the ebb. The Germans swept them up from the beach, like clearing rubbish.

He and some of the British soldiers were sent to a remote farm near Cambrai - or more precisely, a makeshift POW camp dubbed “The Farm”. They were crammed into two rows of wooden sheds no bigger than 100 square feet, crowding each other like canned asparagus spears. Those who couldn’t squeeze in had to stay outside, and the luckier ones would get a small piece of shade under the roof to escape from the blazing sun.

Then the real ”cleansing“ began.

He watched his fellow prisoners being hustled by the SS to line up in a row before the wire fence. If anyone tried to struggle or protest, what answered everyone would be a hail of bullets from the machine guns that lasted for as long as 30 seconds.

Putrid corpses piled up near one side of the fence, waiting to be burned. Naturally, the burning was left to the ones still left. Straw after straw added on their fraying nerves, until the last one.

 

Ironically, the silver wings and the two alternate-colored stripes on his uniform saved him from execution, because flight lieutenants were a rarity among the POWs at the time.

The Germans already had the advantage on the Continent, and now they needed to solidify their aerial superiority in order to reach the other shore of the Channel and seize the heart of Great Britain. Therefore, the more intelligence on the RAF they could get, the better.

 

The first month was endless interrogations.

All his knowledge about interrogation learnt during his pilot training seemed like child’s play in comparison. The Nazis were boundlessly creative at bodily torture, and he was the canvas on which they could unleash such creativity. When their handiwork on him was complete, he was hung out for their comrades to admire, and to put pressure on the other prisoners.

The first round of interrogations yielded nothing. He suffered severe dehydration, sleep-deprivation, and a few broken ribs, but still he got through.

The second round of interrogations were different from the first. The difference being whether the Geneva Convention was treated as waste paper.

The Germans divided those who required the second round into three groups, and assigned different personnels according to each group’s nickname. There were “doors” that could be kicked down with some booting, “windows” that needed to be broken with clubs and rifle butts, and “walls” like him that held firm and silent through it all.

The interrogator in charge of the “walls” was a stony-faced West Slav wearing a black leather coat that set him apart from both the Wehrmacht and the SS, and a red armband with a Swastika on his sleeve. He had eyes like a pair of burnt-out lamps, and his gaze first fell on Farrier‘s files once he entered the room.

“R-A-F-”

The West Slav read out the three letters in a voice that reminded him of a sawed tree stump, frightening in its smoothness and flatness, just like his expressions. After he finished reading, the West Slav pulled out a pistol from his holster, and cocked it. He pointed his jaw at the soldiers, motioning them to hold him down on the ground, grab his arms, and force him to stretch out his hands.

 

Crack, and then, another crack.

The racket of the gunshots hammered into him as though someone drove two nails into his body, even the pain felt as if - no, not just as if. It suddenly dawned on him that the two bullets did - like nails force through wooden planks - shoot through his palms.

The pain of broken bones and torn tendons flared through his body. He shivered instinctively, then howled like a caged animal.

“You're not a pilot anymore,” the interrogator slowly wiped off the muzzle on his sleeve, and in Berlin-accented English and a soft tone like a priest guiding a lost sheep, said: “so you don't need a pair of hands that can steer the controls and shoot guns anymore.”

He whimpered in agony, his face twisted, but he clenched his jaw and refused to show any signs of discomposure or defeat. His consciousness slowly bled out of him with the cold sweat soaking his body. From his hands, twin trails of blood stretched out on the sand, terrible and grotesque.

 

 _Thank goodness,_ he thought fuzzily, _better me than you._

 

✈✈

 

To Collins, Farrier was a page written in the language of an absurdist. He was sure he could find on this page no less than ten ways to cheat at poker, all kinds of obscenities one could often hear down at the pubs, every squadron member’s birth date and place, many tricks for better flying a machine, and a scent that was a mixture of air fuel, tobacco, and sweat.

Now, after three years, that scent had seeped into his uniforms, his bed, and his body. It had become a part of him.

The scent still lingered.

But its owner was gone.

 

Thirty-three hundred thousand men safely evacuated from Dunkirk, back to England, but the one he cared about the most was not one of them.

The news about Farrier travelled over the English Channel more than a month after Dunkirk, first to the RAF headquarters, then after multiple transfers came into the hands of his squadron leader, and finally reached him. The opened report on the desk was typed in dull gray-black letters. It looked like a will.

“I’m very sorry.”

His squadron leader shook his head.

He stared at the capital letters of POW printed on the report, unblinkingly. Like a body overdosing on anaethsetics and going from senselessness to seizures, he didn't feel the squadron leader’s hand tapping on his shoulder. He was just standing, staring. A low buzzing sound rang in his ears, a terrible white noise after the radio transmission was dead.

He didn’t cry. He wasn’t able to.

He didn’t know which was more depressing to see, POW or KIA.

The Luftwaffe bombers had been coming in droves from the other side of the Channel since July; attacks on the Navy ships and the RAF bases near the South Coast were rampant. Rumours of Germany’s plan to bomb London were whispered in every room in 10 Downing Street, and an air battle was imminent. How could the Germans possibly go easy on an RAF pilot fallen into their hands -

 

_Why did it have to be you?_

Thought Collins, looking around their shared barrack room, at the coat hangers that had been unused for over a month, at the empty single bed across from his, and asked himself over and over again.

_Why not me?_

 

They had always been together, in battle, in daily life, but this time fate set them on different paths.

If one of them had to make the sacrifice, he would choose himself.

Whether from his personal point of view or for the good of his country, he considered Farrier to be the one more important, more worthy of saving.

Because in his eyes Farrier was more brilliant than everybody else.

Because Farrier was born to be a pilot.

 

In their halcyon days, the born pilot would tear through the sky in his Spitfire, climb to angels 10 at top speed, all while singing him a sweet English tune on the radio. He would loop around Collins’s fighter, tilt his wings slightly, roll, and loop again, like a tropical bird in a merry mating dance.

He was stunned momentarily, then couldn’t help huffing out a laugh. Chuckling, he brushed up on his swear words and cussed at this unbelievable mad man.

“Fuck you, Farrier!”

“Most romantic thing I’ve ever heard, I swear!”

The man on the radio replied, roaring with laughter.

When they finally had to go back to base because they were low on fuel, the mad man bounded across the tarmac, through the rippling air that almost burned under the dog days’ blazing sun. He swept Collins into his arms as soon as he jumped off the plane, and took off his helmet. Hands on the nape of his neck, Farrier used the long shadow of the wing to shield them from prying eyes, and sealed his lips with a kiss almost as searing as the sun.

He knew his heart had surrendered long before his rational mind.

Farrier barged into his life the way a collision between two planes at angels 10 would, shattering them both into pieces, but igniting the brightest flames.

 

Given the intolerance of the society, they had kept their relationship firmly in the dark, but Farrier always managed to find opportunities to amuse him in the monotonous daily grind of the military.

One day, he climbed into Fortis 2’s cockpit, and on his control panel was a heart drawn in white grease pencil, accompanied by “Made in London” in tiny letters underneath. London was where Farrier came from. He stared at the marks for three seconds, and then before he knew it, he was smiling. Through the canopy, he saw Fortis 1 nearby with its pilot inside, who lifted the corners of his mouth and gave him a cheeky salute.

Another time, Farrier wrote him a poem. It had embarrassing lines such as “I wish to turn into a plane, diving in the blue of your eyes”, and it made him roll around in laughter. The man who wrote it simply shrugged nonchalantly, abandoned his piece, and closed their distance to swallow his laughter in a fervent kiss.

 

It was the same man who was always so very calm, steady, and fierce during a mission, with a confidence and sharpness that could almost be mistaken for arrogance.

His hands could caress his hair with the tenderest touches.

The same hands could also steer a fighter in the most efficient and precise manner to complete almost impossible maneuvers, and strafe a enemy plane once it got within range.

 

 _Per Ardua ad Astra._ He once traced the letters of the motto of the RAF with his finger on Farrier’s palm.

_Through adversity to the stars._

Words befitting a man who had both heroism and romanticism in spades.

And the man curled his palm around his hand, lowered a kiss on his knuckles, like kissing the stars in the motto. 

 

✈✈

 

 _Per Ardua ad Astra._ Farrier couldn’t recall how many times he had tried to write this line on the sandy ground of the camp.

Crooked and hideous, the handwriting was no comparison to what Collins had wrote on his palm.

He pulled back his hands covered in bandages, and imagined seeing them back in the cockpit, working as before.

Yet the reality was that he had lost feeling in most of his fingers. They often shake uncontrollably, and their reflexes had become much slower. A dull ache accompanied every tightening of the muscles, and even something as simple as closing his fist was an insurmountable task.

 

“You are not a pilot anymore.”

The Nazis knew the true meaning of a life sentence.

 

His hands didn’t receive any medical attention after being shot by the Nazis.  The water they used to rinse his wounds was the dirty water from around the camp, which gave him septicaemia. Through the haze of a prolonged fever, he hung onto life by a thread for seven days, until a Swiss doctor from the Red Cross finally arrived on the eighth. In a shabby shed under the heavy watch of the SS, the doctor cut off the dead soft tissue, cleaned his wounds, bandaged them, and gave him salfa injections. Only then did he slowly regained consciousness.

“You might not be able to write again in the future.” The doctor announced regretfully.

For a while he couldn’t speak. He eventually let out a dull “thank you”, without asking any further about other possibilities.

He refused to believe it.

He refused to let two nasty bullet holes negate his past and his future.

“By the way,” The doctor looked up from the medical record he was writing, and asked, “Who is Collins?”

His expression wavered slightly, and he subconsciously glanced at the German soldiers standing watch from the corner of his eye. Before his wildly beating heart betrayed how one name could undo him, he must erase all clues from his expressions.

”I don’t know.” He answered.

“You don’t know?”

”I don’t know.”

“But you kept calling that name when you were unconscious.” The doctor’s innocuous words seemed to arouse the interests of the Germans. Some of them eyed him intently, like jackals in the shadows silently waiting to pounce on their prey.

”I don’t know.” He repeated mechanically, unblinking this time.

 

Of course he knew.

Other than the Union Jack and his fighter, Collins was the third thing he would live and die for.

 

Unlike Farrier who favored the comfort of his roll-neck jumper and his flying jacket, Collins had always dressed and acted like a gentleman. He was never flustered, however discomfitting or mortifying the situations were; he never resorted to rude words, however furious he became. And no matter the weather, he would always dress in full uniform, crisp Windsor knot in his necktie and all.

And that was how Farrier remembered seeing him for the first time, in that raging snowstorm.

It was the second week after New Year. A rare cold wave suddenly hit the mild-wintered RAF Hawkinge, catching the unsuspecting ground staff off-guard. In half an hour’s time, the runway was already covered in snow, so they had to request the Command to abort the day’s plan of sending a reassigned Hurricane to Hawkinge from another station up north.

Unfortunately, the point-to-point communication system went offline for a while after one of their radio stations were down. The order to reverse course was met with radio silence, and the fighter that was scheduled to arrive at noon was nowhere to be seen.

“We still can’t reach the pilot.”

“He might have crashed.”

“Poor chap...”

Strained atmosphere permeated the base. He stood among the people saying prayers for the pilot. Frowning, he stared into the leaden sky, and continued to wait.

Suddenly, the radar started bleeping.

The endless stretch of gray above the horizon was split apart by a dark line - it was a Hurricane, slicing through the looming clouds like a scalpel through cotton wool. It dived almost vertically, but soon found its bearing. Strenuously but patiently, it righted itself to a safe angle, and slowly descended through the howling wind, to the sound of the crowd’s awed exclamations.

“God.” He heard himself gasped.

Probably due to reduced visibility, the fighter didn’t land at the best angle, and almost lost its balance. The wheels hit the frigid runway with a heavy thud, splashing powdery snow high into the air.

He watched intently the whole time. For a second he thought the plane would flip, or hit the control tower, but the Hurricane held on doggedly and managed to stop itself, 500 yards away from the facilities.

 

When the pilot slid open his canopy and climbed out on his own, people finally let out their bated breath, and bursted into boisterous cheers. Surrounded by many ground staff, the pilot came into the building, and received an ovation from the crowd.

He didn’t clap. Squinting, he whistled at the man.

Perhaps hearing his whistle, the pilot raised his clear blue eyes to meet his. Either missing the little bit of veiled provocation from a fellow airman in the whistle, or simply choosing not to acknowledge it, he kept his serene expression, and greeted Farrier with a faint smile: “Afternoon. I’m Collins.”

It was hard to reconcile his modest, gentlemanly image with the crazy stunt he just pulled mere minutes ago.

 _Interesting._ He thought, unaware of his own smile.

“Afternoon, Collins. I’m Farrier.”

The younger pilot let out a quiet “oh” at his reply.

“I’ve heard of you. My former CO mentioned you before. 'Your new partner', he said.”

He chuckled: “No offence, but if you always landed like that in dreadful weather like this, I’m afraid I’d lose my partner rather quickly.”

The other pilot laughed, too: “I was trained in Drem. Not a place for those who can’t deal with Scottish winters.”

He did notice the other man’s Scottish accent.

He also noticed that the snowflakes on the other man’s light blonde locks were starting to melt; translucent beads of snow hung at the tip of his hair, glimmering in the lamplight. His cheeks, slightly roughened by many hours of flying in the sun, were now ruddy from the cold. His smile was just a little bashful, but bright as the first ray of sunlight bursting into the cockpit after the plane broke through the clouds.

And his eyes.

The moment their eyes met, he found himself spellbound by those eyes and a pilot’s most beloved cloudless sky in them, unable to look away.

 

"I think I might be in love with you."

During a sleepless night in the lightless barrack room half a year after they became flying partners, quietly leaning against the other man’s bedside, watching his sleeping face, he whispered, voice rough from the turmoils in his heart.

 

For a long time after that, he more than once fantasised about how his hands would unfasten the buttons, one by one, on the blue uniform, loosen the neat black tie, sneak under his shirt; how he would hear the wearer of the shirt let out a barely suppressed gasp; and how he would finally remove his trousers, and savour the way his movements turned the other man’s pants into moans.

During the second year of their acquaintance, in the shiver-inducing cold of their barrack room after the heater broke down, with “keeping warm” as an excuse, the imagery that had only existed in his imagination became reality.

The only difference was the slightly wet moan Collins let out underneath him.

It had a sensuality that no imagination could realise.

 

"I think I might be in love with you.”

Panting heavily, head pressed against Collins’s shoulder, he said the words for the first time while the other man was awake.

 _If I haven’t been before._ He added silently in his heart.

Then he heard the faint laughter from Collins.

Five slender fingers buried themselves in his hair, combing the sweaty dark brown tufts like caressing a cherished prize.

“I know,” said Collins, “because we often think the same way.”

 

They often thought the same way.

For instance, they always enjoyed their intimacy on his cot, before going to sleep in a tangle of limbs on Collins’s. There wasn’t any agreement, but simply a tacit understanding formed through time.

It became problematic when they were called on urgent missions in the dead of night, as they often mix up their clothes in a hurry. They would switch back their shirts because of the difference in size; but if it was their ties that got mixed up, he would shamelessly ask to “borrow” Collins’s tie for the day. Ignoring the other man’s long-suffering expression, he would move closer with a smirk, and demand the other to help him with the tie.

And when they return to their room after the mission, they would slowly loosen the tie for each other.

He loved to grip the end of Collins’s tie lightly, and pull him into his arms. To kiss the tiny mole on the right side of his Adam’s apple, nip at it, and watch in satisfaction as the man’s neck slowly reddened with rising heat.

Collins laughed ticklishly, raising a hand to stop him, but didn’t push him away.

“You need to show some restraint.”

“I only ‘show restraint’ when the fuel is low.”

“Should I be upset that you’d treat me like a plane?”

He chuckled, his breath ghosting across the other man’s collarbone. He planted a kiss there.

 

“No,” he answered smoothly, “because I always treasure my plane, and you know that, Collins.”

 

✈✈

 

“Here's what you asked for."

His squadron leader set a briefcase down on the desk in front of Collins, opened it, and then unwrapped the thick cloth inside.

A battered piece of metal plate, scorched at the edges, lay silently inside.

R9612, the serial number on it read.

He stared at it, motionless, as if staring at a headstone in a graveyard.

 

“The body of the plane was all burnt up, and our ground troops only recovered bits and pieces,” the squadron leader tried to gauge his expressions, but discovered that he couldn’t seem to see what he was looking for, so he continued on: “including this piece near the tail with the serial number. It’s confirmed to be Farrier’s plane; he burnt it, I suppose.

He didn't speak.

He knew the other man would never destroy his beloved plane unless it was his last resort.

He knew the man made the sensible choice at that time, just like he knew, the moment he laid his eyes on the serial number, his heart was already as broken as the piece of metal.

His squadron leader sighed quietly, pushed a medal across his desk, and tapped it with his forefinger.

“I hope you’d change your mind and accept this. Even though you’ve said you only wished the HQ to give you something they recovered from Farrier’s plane, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t receive the honour you deserve.”

“I insist, sir."

He stepped forward and saluted his squadron leader, then covered the metal piece again with the cloth, closed the briefcase, and took it with him, leaving only the medal on the desk.

 

The medal arrived together with the harsh winter of 1940. From the bombed-out ruins of London after the Battle of Britain, through the flurry of snow, it came to him, “in recognition of his gallantry in fighting in the battle and destroying a number of enemy aircrafts” - or more bluntly put, in recognition of his survival.

But he didn't accept.

He didn't think he deserved it.

When he declined the honour, he also sent a request to the RAF headquarters for a piece of Farrier’s plane, which was approved with minimal fuss.

In other people's eyes, he did it out of his deep respect for his partner of three years. They used to be inseparable at base, after all, and the story of Farrier shooting down a Stuka on a gliding Spitfire made quite an impression.

What other people didn't know, however, was that he took the metal piece out from the case, put it under his pillow, and used it to get through one sleepless night after another.

 

His cot had always been narrow, but now it felt as though there was too much room, like the hole in his chest that nothing could fill.

When Farrier was still there, the cot was always crowded, hardly able to fit two grown men lying shoulder-to-shoulder together.

So it was no surprise that he found himself constantly burrowing into the other man’s chest, or being held in Farrier’s arms from behind, their bodies pressed together under one blanket through the night until dawn - when they weren’t woken by the siren for urgent missions.

“Morning” was his habitual greeting upon waking, and a good-morning kiss was Farrier’s habitual response.

It usually landed first on his eyelids, then on his cheeks, and finally on his lips.

Step by step, deeper and deeper.

 

“Morning.”

He awoke, and said to the tiny specks of dust floating in the morning light. He absentmindedly reached under the pillow to stroke the charred piece of metal, waiting for a response that wouldn't come.

A response that only existed in his memory. The man in his memory would open his eyes at this moment, then lower his lids languidly. He would turn over to bury his face into the crook of his neck, his voice a warm breeze over his skin: “Good morning, Fortis 2. Is there anything Fortis 1 can help you with?"

He felt the corners of his mouth lift at the thought, and let out a laugh.

At least it could make him forget the tears rolling down his cheeks.

 

“Yes, there is,” He continued the imaginary dialogue, “come back. “

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Farrier didn’t.  
  
Wartime intelligence came in fits and starts, with the false mixed in with the true. Sometimes parsing out a bit of reliable information was as challenging as finding an intact house in the ruins of London after the air raids. The communication system that got half-crippled during the blitzkrieg exacerbated the delay; some of the information was already old news even before reaching its destination.

The image of Farrier the man seemed to be immortalised on that report with “POW” printed in block letters.

As for whether there was any update to the report in the last two years, whether the word on it had been replaced by “KIA”, he had no way of knowing.

He only knew one thing: Farrier didn’t come back, didn’t return to his life.

 

Yet more and more people told him that he had changed, that he was very much like Farrier from before, whether in flight or in survival.

The old him was a conservative in the air who always played by the book. His overly cautious nature often left him in a reactive situation when under heavy fire, but also allowed him a better chance to get out in one piece. Adding that with his enviable ability to force-land readily in all kinds of environments, his sorties were often fairly low-maintenance, which was a rather prudent approach at the time considering the severe shortage of RAF resources early on during the war.

Now he could not be a more different man.

Now he was another Farrier - everyone at base who knew them from before could attest to that.

Now, he didn't know how to back off, or how to fight with reservation, as if some kind of safety pin had been pulled out from him, along with his fear of death.

He chased Luftwaffe aircrafts over the Channel at extremely dangerous speeds and angles. He was even audacious enough to take on three Bf-109G without cover, relentlessly strafe them with his machine gun, even occasionally defy the radio command ordering him to turn back. He terrified the enemies, and discomfitted his own wingmen.

Of course, he also paid for it with six bale-outs, three bullet wounds, and a narrowly avoided crash into a cliff that took a German bomber.

 

“You fight too dangerously,” a commander overseeing the aerial battles pointed out in a serious tone, “and recklessly. This is suicidal behaviour.”

“Because there’s no time.”

“What?”

“Because there’s no time,” He answered mechanically. _Farrier doesn't have time. The longer it takes, the slimmer the chance of his survival_ \- he must work faster, and faster, “I want this war to end faster.”

The commander was startled for a moment, then frowned. He paced the control room with his hands clasped behind his back, and then turned to face the map on the wall, which was covered in the lines of flight routes and the red markings of the German-occupied areas. The red zone had been morphing constantly, spreading into every corner of the Continent, whilst casting covetous eyes on the islands in the north west.

The Battle of Britain had already cost over 400 fighter pilots and 1000 crews their lives in the defence of this island, and it was but a beginning.

“We all want this war to end faster, Collins.”

The commander said, stressing the word “we”. Something heavy in his seemingly even tone stung him.

“I have seen too many young men like you perish too soon on the battlefield, with nary a chance to say goodbye. None of them will live to see the end of the war. The only ones who will, are those who fight and fight to live.”

 

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. His breath was shaky; so were his white-knuckled hands.

Those words were a bullet to the head, and there was no stopping the cutting idea from blasting into his skull like a fired bullet. _It isn’t because the war isn’t over that Farrier hasn’t come back. It’s just that a dead man cannot come back._

He tried to fool himself by pinning all his hope on ending the war, on a supposition. But he had been avoiding confronting the most important conditional preceding it.

 

_Farrier is long gone._

A voice kept telling him. And then he realised - it was the voice of his own.

 

Sleep was becoming increasingly difficult. It felt as though it was put on a cutting board and slashed with a knife, leaving behind a disjointed collage of dreams.

Sometimes he dreamed of a fuel gauge. One second it was full, and in the next the hand was dancing around zero. “The fuel is zero now, zero, turn back!” He yelled frantically into the radio, but the only answer was the raspy white noise in his headsets.

Sometimes he dreamed of standing on a deserted street in London. Black battle-smoke wafted hushedly from the ruins into the windless air; looking from afar, it resembled a scar marring the sky. The cobblestone pavement underfoot, pitted from all the bombings, stretched out and blended into the dark clouds. The sound of a piano drifted in - one of those requiems, fitting for a funeral with an empty coffin. Pages of the report in black and white floated down from the sky, scattering on the ground; on every single page was Farrier’s name and “KIA” in bold, block letters.

More often, however, he dreamed of the seashore. The seashore that symbolised hope for the three hundred thousand soldiers coming back home, but time after time of disappointment for him.

The seashore in his dreams was slightly different from the one in his memory.

Without the brightly lit Dover Harbour, without the BEF soldier deriding him in outrage, it was jarringly quiet, with only the sound of the waves vacillating in and out. A lone wire extended out from where the sound of the tidalwaves echoed, stringing the dim light bulbs together, peeling away the darkness to reveal a long, narrow path leading all the way to the railway station.

The railway platform was already empty. The last train whistled hoarsely, urging him to get on.

He stood next to the railroad, eyes fixed on its vanishing point, lingering.

Also standing there was an old man, with eyes like a pair of gray marbles in the faded light. A blind man, he thought, but politely refrained from asking any questions.

“Maybe you need a blanket, lad,” said the old man, offering him a neatly folded blanket, “it can get cold on the train.”

“Thank you, but I'm still waiting for someone. I don't think I can catch this train, and I don't need a blanket for now.”

The light bulb flittered faintly at this instant.

The old man stood in the flickering light, his hollow eyes pointed towards him, unseeing.

“There's no one coming,” he said, “those who could come back are already back, and those who couldn't will never be.”

 

He was a little nonplussed, then whipped his head around as if offended. His breath thickened all of a sudden.

“Why are you lying? Why are you telling me there’s no one else? You - ” _are blind, and you can’t see whether there are more ships reaching port or not, at all._ Noticing his discomposure, he cut himself off abruptly. He hastily reclaimed some semblance of reason and manners from his state of agitation, then continued in a lowered voice, “... You can’t see, can you?”

“Neither can you, lad.”

The old man’s reply left him dumbfounded.

The old man unfolded the layers of blanket, revealing a piece of blackened metal - serial number R9612.

He blinked, and suddenly stumbled a few steps back as if electrocuted.

“After seeing this, you can’t see anything else, can’t see the reality anymore.”

The old man said.

 

The light bulbs overhead buzzed, and then went off one by one, from the ones in the distance to the ones nearby. Behind him, the road paved by lamp light was absorbed piece by piece into the darkness, too.

He started to hyperventilate, and when he felt breathless, grabbed onto his necktie - his, or Farrier’s because they mixed them up yet again, he had long lost his ability to discern. Where the lights gave out, waves surged from every direction, just like the seawater rushing into his cockpit that day, squeezing out the last gulp of oxygen from his lungs.

The metal fragment was knocked out from the old man’s hand by a swell, and sank.

"Farrier!"

He choked out a cry, desperately grasping at it. The icy water swallowed him just like it did the metal plate.

“It’s time to wake up, lad,” before he drowned, he heard the blind old man say, “time to open your eyes.”

 

✈✈

 

Farrier opened his eyes in the thrum of the aircraft engine.

The sound yanked him out of the fits and starts of his nightmare. He felt like a man hauled out of the water right before drowning, and couldn't help gulping in the air.

 

But in reality, there was no aircraft, let alone the sound of an aircraft engine. It was just the sound of a train carrying rock salt pounding on the rail.

He lifted his head from the ground, but quickly dropped it back in the ensuing dizziness, coughing violently. Feeling the tightness of suffocation in his chest, he then realised he was holding his breath when trying to identify the sounds.

Indeed, there were no aircrafts. Not even the sky.

He hadn’t touched a plane for four years, and hadn’t seen the sky for one.

 

A salt mine a thousand feet deep underground had nothing to do with the sky. Nor with freedom - like all the labour camps the Nazis set up to exploit their prisoners.

The thick smell of brine permeated the maze of tunnels, and the supporting timbers were covered in a fine layer of white rock salt. A wire hung above him, connecting the two ends of the tunnel, suspending the tungsten lights overhead. The unstable current during the war caused the lights to flicker and buzz constantly.

“Up! Up!”

An SS soldier thwacked his arm with the butt of his rifle, cursing. Over the past few years, he had learned to understand the few menacing phrases in German.

He didn't make a sound, just gritted his teeth and slowly pushed himself up from the ground. He wiped away the salt stains on his face - whether it was from the mine or from his own dried sweat, he didn't know.

They were in Poland, a country struggling desperately in a nightmare from which it couldn’t wake up.

The many salt mines underneath the Carpathian Mountains near the Czechoslovakian borders sucked the labourers transported from all over Europe into these white dungeons, providing the Nazis with inexhaustible riches and materials.

In about two weeks, he would have been here for a year.

The middle and lower levels of the salt mine had numerous chambers, where he and the others lived. Windowless, bedless, the chambers were filled with salty, clammy air. The SS made head counts each morning, noon, and night, and shuffled the residents of each chambers around on a regular basis to prevent the prisoners from staying in touch with each other. Getting to the tunnel entailed climbing the narrow steps under the watchful eyes of the sentinels, and the way to the outside world was even more heavily guarded. Once in, many never lived to see the light of day again.

He was one of the stronger ones when he first arrived at the camp, but now he was weak as any other soldier who had lived through the ordeal.

The old wounds on his hands had slowly developed into a chronic condition, and so had the pain. He could complete simple tasks, but couldn’t operate any machinery that required precision or dexterity, and he lost most of the strength in his hands. But of course this didn’t deter the Nazis from using him like a cattle. He had done all sorts of manual labour before joining the RAF, but it was nothing like this in terms of intensity and lack of rest, not to mention the SS watching his every waking moment or slapping him awake whenever he began to doze off in exhaustion.

 

“Are you okay?” The American currently sharing his chamber asked in a hushed voice.

He didn’t speak, only nodded.

He hadn’t had a drop of water to drink for hours; his throat was dry as the cracked earth in a drought, and his vocal cords grated together like slabs of sandstone. If he had a choice, he would speak as little as possible.

 

The American was captured by the Germans near the Denmark Strait.

Four years ago, the United States sent a fleet across thousands of miles to Iceland in support of the war effort. After they officially joined the war, as the Japanese dragged the majority of the US Navy into the Pacific Theatre, this fleet also followed them to the Far East, leaving only some maintenance crew in Europe. The poor bugger was helping a British ship when a German torpedo sent him flying into the sea. Then, freshly fished out from the briny sea water, he was soon thrown into the equally briny salt mine.

The Germans put them together with some French, Belgian, Polish and Soviet prisoners, and he was the only one the American could communicate with.

“Do you know how long they - I mean, the Krauts - will keep us down here?”

_Until the war is over, or we give up the ghost. Whichever comes first, you never know._

He didn’t say it, instead chose to shake his head silently, and loaded more salt onto the cart.

He had learnt to tell whether a man had been captured before, and for how long. It was all in the eyes.

The American had never been a POW before, and had only been here for a month, hence the spark of life in his eyes.

And he could still talk about his family in a hopeful tone, as if he was sure they would see each other again.

 

“Here.”

Back in the chamber, the American snuck a smoke inside from God-knows-where, maybe as payment for working another prisoner’s shift. The POWs sometimes exchanged labour for goods, which - in addition to the ever-popular cigarettes - could mean a relatively clean shirt, a belt, a small razor, amongst other things.

He didn't refuse, simply nodded in gratitude.

He’d been coughing lately - many who stayed in the salt mine for a long time did. The briny air filled the lungs with slimes, and being exposed in it for so long made him feel sick.

He needed a fag, and the American needed an opening to let the words out, otherwise the sunless underground would drive them mad sooner or later.

The American was always the talkative one, recounting over and over again the stories about his wife and two sons back in North Carolina, about his parents who owned a textile mill, and about his brother in the Marines, who was fighting the Japanese on some pacific island.

And he never spoke of anything like that.

The American obviously noticed, too.

“Do you have family?”

“No,” he usually answered questions in only a word or two. This time he used two, polar opposite to each other, separated only by a puff of smoke, “yes.”

The American seemed to be baffled by the two most basic words in the English language, and looked at him bemusedly.

“Well?”

 

 _Well_ , Collins’s voice was quiet in his ear, _do you have family?_

 

“What?” He turned his head in the dim light of the pub, and raised an eyebrow.

Alcohol and the raucous laughter from the airmen around them seemed to have dulled his auditory nerves quite a bit, and he was unsure of the question he just heard.

The man next to him looked away in what appeared to be some unease.

It was an April evening, and the spring chill still lacing the air seemed to lose its bite in this small pub with industrial-revolution-inspired decorations. Fire crackled in the hearth. The officers stood against the black wrought iron pipes adorning the brick wall, drinking, smoking, and discussing the politics from _The Times_. Some of the airmen preferred to flirt and dance with young girls in knee-length dresses with small floral prints, whereas the others were gathered around a table, enjoying a round of poker, punctuating it with bursts of excited shouts.

They sat in a corner, chatting absently.

Already a bit tipsy, he couldn't for the life of him remember how they got to that topic.

“The form,” a while later, the one who started the topic finally said, “the form they gave out a few days ago for updating family contacts, you left it on the desk, and I happened to see it. I didn't mean to, and I’m really sorry.”

He snorted, and shook his head: “It's not exactly a secret anyway. So you saw it. It's no big deal.”

It was the third month of their acquaintance; it was unrealistic to expect to know everything about someone in merely three months, even though they were colleagues, roommates, and “best duo” - as they were known in the squadron.

Collins studied him silently for a few moments, then looked away, and didn't ask further.

It was Farrier who started to speak again: “I don’t have family - if by family you mean people related to me by blood, then no, or at least as good as no. I had been living in an orphanage ever since I can remember. The matron was a devout Christian, a war widow. Her husband was blown in half - literally - by the Huns’ plane at the Somme in 1916. He died right there in the trenches, and she used the pension to open the orphanage. The last time I saw her was in a hospice in 1932. I made a promise by her bedside: ‘One day I’ll join the RAF, become a pilot, and if anyone dared to bomb our troops again, I’d take them down.’ She died three days later; I heard she was peaceful when she passed.”

Collins listened.

Despite the silence, he knew Collins had been listening.

“I never considered myself unfortunate, or thought the world owed me anything,” he continued, “I made good on my promise, and realized my dream. I’m quite happy with my life - besides, I have a new family now.”

At these words, Collins jerked his head up, watching him as though searching for something.

He turned, shifting his sight to the group of RAF men drunkenly laughing and shoving at each other, many of whom were barely twenty. The hearth fire bathed their young faces and blue uniforms in a soft golden glow. He smiled together with them.

 

“You, them, all of you,” he took a gulp of the liquor, turning his attention back towards his partner, “are my family now.”

 

Maybe it was at the sight of his smile, Collins smiled, too.

The awkwardness from the beginning of their conversation dissipated; in its place was a sense of tacit closeness.

“You have been taking care of us. You’re more experienced, you outrank us, but you never order us about. You're like a big brother to us.” The smile lingered on Collins’s face, but his eyes were studying the table top, “Whether it's in training or everyday life, I always find you…”

He paused at the words.

“I always find you caring.”

Farrier didn't think too much on it, swirling his tumbler with a mellow smile, and took up the conversation where Collins left off: “Not only that, I also remember the birthday and birthplace of everybody in our squadron. Even real big brothers don't necessarily manage that, dare I say.”

Collins let out a breathy laugh, but still wouldn't look up and meet his eyes.

“Aye? And my birthplace is?”

“You were born in Chelmsford in England, but grew up in Scotland - Oxton. Apparently it’s a rustic little village, with sweeping grasslands and fat sheep.”

“And my birthday?”

“Second of June.”

He answered unhurriedly, reaching out to pat on his partner’s shoulder.

“When that day comes, let's go for a drink. Whatever you like, it’ll be on me.”

 

Much to his surprise, Collins didn't reply right away. For a moment he even thought he remembered the wrong date, and the other man was debating whether he should correct him.

Instead, he heard the other man gently calling his name.

"Farrier."

He reflexively raised his eyes, and was slightly stunned.

Collins was perched upright on the chair, and every line of his uniform was pulled perfect and crisp by his posture. Clear blue eyes peered into him, silently smiling. In the lamp light, those eyes appeared a slightly different shade from the usual blue of a sunny day, as if the twilight over the English Channel fell in them. His hair took on a dusky gold sheen, like the afterglow of a sunset.

  
“Thank you.”

Collins murmured, without clarifying whether it was for remembering his birthday, or for the comment about family.

 

At that moment, he heard the faint scratching sound of a match being lit up, and his breath was burnt away as fast as the matchstick, until that small burst of flame blasted into his chest, setting ablaze the emotion smouldering inside.

He was struck by the realization of what it was, as well as its dire consequences.

 _No,_ he warned himself, _no, absolutely not._

But his heart didn't follow his order this time.

Or any time thereafter-

 

The smoke was burned to the end, blistering his finger.

He gasped, his hand shook, and the last remaining bit of cigarette fell onto the ground in a flurry of ashes.

“Damn, that hurts.”

“Of course it hurts,” the American eyed him, incredulous, like eyeing some boy who had never tried smoking before, “you should be careful. Don't let the cig burn your finger.”

No. He thought. After he lost half of the feeling in his hands, the nerve endings in his fingers were also very slow at sensing pain. The burn from a cigarette shouldn't make him feel pain, let alone that sharp pain like a needle piercing all the way down to his heart.

 

Odd, that.

He suddenly felt his lungs constrict. Frowning, he grabbed his shirt collar, and heaved great gulps of air like an asthmatic.

In the flickering lamp light, the stub of cigarette smouldered feebly in its death throes, before giving out in a swirl of bluish smoke. It almost reminded him of a crashed plane burning down somewhere in the middle of the vast ocean.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still looking for a beta-reader. If anyone is interested, please let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading; I hope you've enjoyed it so far.  
> Please feel free to comment in English in the author's original post, too! She also reads and writes English.


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